Sunday, May 22, 2011

The following video was uploaded to Youtube on May 21st, 2011 and features what appears to be a fleet or armada of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) flying across the night skies of the city of Surrey in British Columbia, Canada. The bright white objects appear to be moving in unison, as if they are a part of one large vessel, that seem to be as large as the city below. What was it?

In Kansas, a tornado killed one man, destroying 20 homes in Reading and over 200 others around the town, as hail the size of baseballs fell in Topeka.

A tornado swept through a small eastern Kansas town, killing one person and destroying at least 20 homes, as severe thunderstorms pelted the region with hail that some residents said was the size of baseballs, authorities said early Sunday. A man was pronounced dead shortly after being taken to Newman Regional Hospital in Emporia, about 20 miles from where the tornado hit Saturday night in Reading, hospital supervisor Deb Gould said. She said two other people were brought in with injuries but she had no further details. "I'm hoping it's over for us," she told The Associated Press, noting that local authorities were still at the scene in Reading, about 50 miles south of Topeka. About 200 homes were damaged in and around the town of about 250 people Saturday night, said Kansas Division of Emergency Management spokeswoman Sharon Watson. The local post office and volunteer fire department were damaged, and all roads in and out of the town have been closed off. Rev. Lyle Williams, who lives in Emporia and is a pastor for about 10 worshipers at the Reading First Baptist Church, said the church suffered extensive damage. "Yeah, it's pretty bad," he told the AP. "My daughter was out there and told me about it." "I'm not going to be able to have church today, that's for sure," he added, saying he's been a pastor at the church for 21 years. Power had been restored in the town by early Sunday and a shelter was being set up at a local school. The tornado was reported around 9:15 p.m., Watson said. Powerful storms rolled across northeast Kansas late Saturday, spawning funnel clouds and hail that ripped limbs off of trees and shattered windows. In Topeka, residents were reporting hail the size of golf balls and in some cases baseballs.The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado also touched down in Topeka and northeast of the city near Lake Perry, where damage was reported at a nearby campsite, Watson said. - CBS News.

On May 20th 1963, East Pakistan suffered from a cyclone that killed about 22,000 along the coast of the Bay of Bengal. On the same date, in 1999, a cyclone struck the Arabian Sea coast and left an estimated 700 people missing, many of whom were presumed dead. Residents said that as many as 3,500 people were missing. By the end of the month of June, the same year, the bodies of 370 Indian fishermen was recovered from the cyclone that hit the Pakistani coast. In a late report, courtesy of Dawn.com, at least 1,000 persons were killed in a cyclone in the eastern parts of Pakistan on May 9th.

The death toll in the recent East Pakistan cyclone will run into four digits if the unofficial reports, which are continuously pouring in from the affected areas, especially from Barisal district, are to be relied upon. At least 1,000 persons are believed to have been killed and several thousands rendered homeless in Bakerganj district by the cyclone which hit the province on May 9. Official figures of casualties are still being collected in the interior of the district and will not be available until tomorrow or the day after. East Pakistan Governor Lt-Gen Mohammad Azam Khan left for Barisal early this morning by steamer to see for himself the havoc wrought by the cyclone. The general will return to Dacca tomorrow evening, after a brief stopover at Chandpur, fully equipped with first-hand knowledge of the disaster. Meanwhile, unverified reports reaching from Patuakhali, a sub-division in the Barisal district, speak of colossal loss of human life. In a few police stations of that sub-division, over 500 persons are feared killed. No official confirmation of this figure was, however, available. The Perojpur sub-division had also reported an almost equal number of deaths.

According to City News in Toronto, Canada, families out enjoying the sunshine at Mississauga’s Jack Darling Park on Saturday were in for an unpleasant surprise, as dozens of dead fish were spotted in the water and on the shoreline.

Bhargavi Patel, who had gone to the Lake Ontario park with her son, said there was an unusual yellow film on the water. “That the fishes are dying means there is some problem around here,” Patel told CityNews. “Every year I come here and I have never seen something like this,’ she added. The Ministry of Environment told CityNews the yellow film is caused by the dispersal of pollen, and is common at this time of year. However, the pollen did not kill the fish - the Ministry says they died of natural causes.

The farmers in northern Europe are finding themselves caught between a hard place and a rock-hard place as an unusually dry spring turns to summer. France, the European Union’s top wheat producer, has formed a national “drought committee”, limiting water consumption in many regions and lifting curbs on the use of fallow land for grazing. The worrying thing is that this year’s dry spell started early, as it did in 1976. The disastrous drought that year culminated in a heatwave during which England, for example, saw a sustained period of temperatures above 30C. Could this happen again in 2011?

France has imposed limits on water consumption in 28 of its 96 administrative departments, the environment ministry said Monday, amid signs that a prolonged dry spell that has hit grain crops would continue. "We are already in a situation of crisis. The situation is like what we would expect in July for groundwater levels, river flows and snow melting," Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet told a press conference. The government had previously put 27 departments under water consumption limits, and Kosciusko-Morizet said Monday that similar measures could be extended to three more -- effectively affecting a third of the country. One of the hottest and driest Aprils on record in France has parched farmland and cut water reserves, stoking worries of a drought similar to that experienced in 1976 and fuelling concern harvests will suffer in the European Union's top grain producer. No substantial rainfall is expected in the next two weeks, weather expert Michele Blanchard told Monday's press conference. In an interview with Reuters Insider, Meteo France forecaster Michel Daloz said that temperatures would also rise sharply in the next week, boosting groundwater evaporation. "It would really need a miracle, which is three weeks of heavy rain after the coming 8-10 days (of a dry spell), to hope to make up for some of the deficit," Daloz said. - Reuters.

Several days ago, I highlighted a story about the mounting fears among marine rescuers that up to one hundred pilot whales could strand on the beaches of South Uist in Loch Carnan, Scotland. Well, in an update to that article, it turns out that the pod of trapped whales did swim out to sea, only to return to the shores only hours later

One was found dead and experts believe all 60 mammals could be killed if they follow the lead whale. The pod moved away from the shallow waters on the shores of Loch Carnan in South Uist around noon, prompting jubilation from rescuers. But the confused 20ft pilot whales only went to the next inlet - Loch Skiport - before returning at 5pm to Loch Carnan, where they had been since Thursday. Alisdair Jack, co-ordinator of the British Divers Marine Life Rescue, said: "It is very worrying that one of the whales has stranded and appears dead. "We just hope the others do not follow." The Scottish SPCA were also involved in the rescue bid and an inflatable pontoon was being prepared to try and float them to safety. A Scottish Agricultural College vet joined rescuers yesterday evening and the Scottish government sent the fisheries protection vessel MPV Hirta to assist. Around 20 mammals had suffered cuts to their heads after they were bashed off rocks. Rescue efforts were hampered by the weather, with high winds, rough seas and moderate visibility due to low cloud and rain. Pilot whales prefer deep water but come to shallower water in search of squid, their main food source. - The Daily Record.

As heavy rains and deluges of flood continue to swamp parts of planet Earth, a lingering drought in the Central Hubei province in China, has rendered 1,392 reservoirs virtually useless as only dead water remains in them, said the local water authority Monday.

Known as the "land of a thousand lakes" and a major producer of grain and cotton in the country, Hubei is suffering from a drought that has lasted for five months. As of Sunday, water in four medium-sized and 1,388 small-sized reservoirs had dropped below the allowable discharge level for irrigation and other purposes, said Yuan Junguang, director with the reservoir management office of Hubei Provincial Water Resources Department. One fourth of all small-sized reservoirs in Hubei were unusable with just dead water remaining in them which could only be pumped for use in an emergency, he said. The water level of the Danjiangkou Reservoir, which is part of China's massive south-to-north water diversion project, was also extremely low, measuring 134.77 meters on Saturday, 4.23 meters below its dead water level. Also as of Saturday, the drought had left about 315,000 people and 97,300 livestock in the province short of drinking water. About 12.45 million mu (about 830,000 hectares) of farmland has been affected by the drought, according to a survey conducted by the Hubei provincial agricultural department. "Ever since Spring Festival in February, we've had no drinking water in the village. It's now a routine for us to carry water in from about two kilometers away," says Yu Youqing, 73-year-old farmer in the village of Huashan in Hubei. - China Daily.

Iceland's most active volcano erupted Saturday, with a white plume shooting 18,000 feet into the air, above the glacier that sits over the volcano, spurring 50 quakes. Iceland's Meteorological Office confirmed Saturday that an eruption had begun, and local media said smoke could be seen coming from the volcano.

The eruption was followed by around 50 small earthquakes, the largest of which measured 3.7 on the Richter Scale, according to Iceland's meteorological office. There was a similar eruption at the same volcano in 2004. Scientists don't believe this eruption will lead to air travel chaos like that caused by ash from the Eyjafjallajokul volcano in April 2010. The Grimsvotn volcano is located underneath the Vatnajokull glacier in southeast Iceland. Sparsely populated Iceland is one of the world's most volcanically active countries and eruptions are frequent. They often cause local flooding from melting glacier ice, but rarely cause deaths. Last year's Eyjafjallajokul eruption left millions of air travelers stranded after winds pushed the ash cloud toward some of the world's busiest airspace and led most northern European countries to ground all planes for five days. In November, melted glacial ice began pouring from Grimsvotn, signaling a possible eruption. That was a false alarm but scientists have been monitoring the volcano closely ever since. - MSNBC.

Scientists say the latest eruption is unlikely to cause similar problems, although it may trigger localised flooding. Volcanic eruptions are common in Iceland, which lies along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that divides the Eurasian and North American continental plates. Icelandic Meteorological Office geologist Hjorleifur Sveinbjornsson told Reuters that Grimsvotn had thrown a plume of white smoke about 15km (nine miles) into the air. "It can be a big eruption, but it is unlikely to be like last year," he added. Last year's outpouring of ash from Eyjafjallajokull led to the largest closure of European airspace since World War II. About 10 million travellers were affected and some questioned whether the shutdown was an over-reaction. However, a scientific study published last month said the safety concerns had been well founded. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Iceland said ash particles from the early part of the Eyjafjallajokull eruption were especially abrasive, posing a possible threat to aircraft. - BBC.